Conventionally, an event in a real world has been converted into data by using a sensor. The data acquired by using the sensor is information that is obtained by projecting information of the real world (e.g., light) onto a space and time having a lower number of dimensions than the real world. Accordingly, the information obtained by projection has distortion that occurs through projection. For example, in the case of imaging, by using a video camera, a moving object in front of a background at rest and converting it into data as an image signal, information of the real world is sampled and converted into data, so that an image which is displayed on the basis of the image signal encounters a motion blur that the moving object blurs as distortion that occurs through projection.
To solve this problem, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-250119 (Corresponding U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/830,858, Corresponding EP Patent Application Publication No. EP1164545), for example, by detecting a profile of an image object that corresponds to an object in a foreground contained in an input image, the image object that corresponds to the object in the foreground is coarsely extracted to detect a motion vector of the image object corresponding to the object in the foreground that is coarsely extracted, so that the detected motion vector and its position information may be used to mitigate a motion blur.
Further, an arbitrary viewpoint image has been conventionally generated from any items of data obtained by using sensors. In this generation of arbitrary viewpoint image, a motion vector at a viewpoint position is detected and an entire screen is moved by a motion amount in a direction opposite to a motion direction of the motion vector, so that an image display is enabled with the viewpoint position being fixed. For example, if an image pickup operation is performed with a direction of an image pickup apparatus being fixed when a picked-up image is displayed based on an image signal obtained by the image pickup apparatus, an image in which a moving subject is moved on a screen occurs. Herein, if a viewpoint position is set on the moving subject to generate an image, a motion vector of the moving subject is detected and an entire screen is moved by a motion amount in a direction opposite to a motion direction of the motion vector, thereby enabling an image in which the moving subject is displayed at a fixed position on a screen to be obtained.